Two Local First groups, one in Cambridge and the other in Roslindale, are up and running and Somerville and Jamaica Plain merchants are looking to create their own. 
   Laury Hammel, who runs four health clubs in the western suburbs, is having enormous national success with Local First. A meeting in Essex earlier this month attracted several dozenlocal business owners from around the country who want to start their own Local First. 
   “The response to Local First is overwhelming. This has really taken off,” says the 58-year-old Hammel, who co-founded Local First six years ago and now spends one week each month traveling the country setting up groups. 

    There are already Local First groups in and around cities like Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle, Salt Lake City, San Francisco and in Toronto and Vancouver in Canada. 
    The reason for its success? Local First mixes a neighborly call for support for merchants in older retail districts with a socially conscious mission that talks a lot about community values and nurturing social connections. 

    “I wouldn’t call it New Age, it’s the new reality,” says Lisa Modecker, a Roslindale lawyer who is heading up that neighborhood’s Local First, which already has over 40 members. “We have to protect the small businesses that we have and we have to do it now. We have to think locally.” 

    Young urban professionals, increasingly attracted to upscale local restaurants, shops, bakeries and cafes in older urban neighborhoods like Roslindale are finding that Local First gives them the opportunity to show their support, Modecker says.

    “The goal is to make people more aware of local businesses and make it easier for those who believe in shopping locally to know where to find them,” says Sally Lesser, a Cambridge Local First co-chair and owner of Henry Bear’s Park, with toy stores in Cambridge’s Huron Village as well as in Brookline Village and Arlington Center.

       Cambridge’s Local First recently published 20,000 copies of a 92-page guide to its 180 member businesses, including restaurants, bookstores, cafes, boutiques and local service businesses like hardware stores. Members get Local First decals, which they posted in their store windows.
      “We know our customers and they believe in us,” adds Michael Kanter, who co-owns vitamin shop Cambridge Naturals with his wife. “Since the Local First guide has come out, our business has gone way up.” 

    The main economic argument Local First uses is a study commissioned by Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood that shows that out of each $100 spent at a locally owned business $68 is retained in the community. According to the study, spending in non-locally owned shops only $43 stays in the community’s economy.

    Roslindale Local First member Judie Leon-Assaf of Travel by Judie says she joined Roslindale Local First to help bring more awareness to the importance of local businesses to neighborhoods.

     “We’re the ones who support the local Little Leagues and other nonprofits,” says Leon-Assaf, who has had her business in Roslindale Square for 30 years. “Local First is helping make people aware that if you don’t shop locally, if you take us for granted, you’re in danger of losing your local business community.”

    Local First says that their mission is not to compete with local chambers of commerce, but Dale Szceblowski, co-owner of Porter Square Books and a Cambridge Local First member says “there’s a general feeling among many locally owned business owners that big-city chambers are more beholden to larger corporations and real estate interests.”

    Local First members feel that their organized groups can give them some of same economies of scale that chains enjoy, such as bulk purchasing of supplies and energy.

    Cambridge’s Local First will soon offer its members the opportunity to buy wind-generated electric power at rates that rival what the chains pay for their electricity.

    “All local businesses have the same challenges in trying to compete with the chains and the migration of retail to the Internet,” says Frank Kramer, co-chair of Cambridge Local First and owner of The Harvard Bookstore. “Chains are going to get their business, but we have to let our customers know that all of us who own local businesses do so for economic and personal reasons such as investing back into the communities where we do business.”

    To be eligible to join a Local First, a business must be private and the owner has to live in the state where the shop is located. And most importantly, qualifying businesses must be able to make their own marketing decisions. Local shops pay $100 to join and for that they are listed in the directory and on the community’s Local First Web site.

    And it isn’t just businesses that can join. Cambridge Local First is rolling out a “Think Local, Be Local” program that will allow interested Cambridge residents who don’t have a business to contribute to the cause.

    Longer term, Local First members hope their groups will be able to effect public policy.

    “Clearly we are a pro-small business group, but we also want to create a more sustainable society where people can walk to local shops and use their cars less,” says Kanter who has been in business in Cambridge for 33 years and recently relocated to Porter Square Shopping Center. “Collectively we hope to influence and partner with landlords, showing that we can bring in local businesses that will do well by them and for the community.”